What makes someone an influencer in today’s digital age? What can you do as a business owner to become a market influencer in your niche area?
These are important questions. When you are trying to promote your brand and your company online, it’s not enough just to exist. You need to stand out. You need to have a voice.
You need to be the company that others come to for advice when they need a problem solved that is within your area of expertise.
How do you gain this type of reputation as an expert or an influencer?
What is an influencer?
An influencer is someone who has the power to shape opinions and trends in the market. Being an influencer is not just about being a “big shot” in your industry. It is about attracting your target audience. Some of the most well-known influence marketers in the online marketing space are Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, Seth Godin and Pat Flynn.
I Think, Therefore I Am
When you do more than just have a website and you truly get down into the nitty-gritty of your industry, you create social proof for yourself that you are a credible source. This social proof doesn’t happen on your own, however.
You have to have people who believe in what you say and are willing to tell others.
Here are some tips we picked up in our research on how you can establish yourself as a marketing influencer from the people who have influenced us.
Choose a specific focus and narrow your niche.
You’ve probably heard this said in many circles these days, and it’s true. The more specifically-focused your niche area is, the better you can harness your specific target audience. The web is noisy, and there are so many people trying to achieve the say thing you are doing. So if you are in a niche that few people are in, and you do it well, you are more likely to win friends and influence people.
Become an Expert with a Special Angle
When the web first started, it seemed it was hard to find an expert. So the experts online were fairly easy to find. You knew that, once you found one in the area you were looking for, they must be it. Despite their obvious genius at what they did, the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates happened during those early days too when they quickly rose to fame initially because they were the only ones doing it!
But now it is harder to get noticed and make your message stand out in the crowd. There are hundreds of so-called or self-proclaimed experts that seem to have all of the answers. But making yourself stand out takes more than expertise. You need an angle.
You need to show your visitors that you have that something special that will help them more than your competition will.
Remember, despite all of the endless pages of websites, blogs, and Twitter accounts with people putting their name up in lights, many of these “experts” are just amateurs that are in the process of learning. Be better than them and you are on your way to success.
Be sure to check out our infographic marketing experts roundup which features expertise from some of the brightest minds and influencers in the design space.
Have a high-traffic blog.
There’s no doubt that blogging is the next big thing. It’s important for some reasons. It increases your traffic for your target audience. It improves Google rankings, especially if you are on the Blogger.com platform (which Google owns).
But you need to increase your traffic to your blog to become an influencer. Otherwise, you are just another business with some posts.
Seth Godin, a top influencer in the blogging industry is so good at blogging that he’s made his career around it. You can see some of his influential posts here.
We’re not saying that Seth Godin is God, even though he has the word “God” in his name!
But he is an influencer. So it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at what he’s done over time and how he has built his following.
In general, his writing is not that superior. He’s just an ordinary guy with some ideas on how to be successful. Still, he has achieved tremendous wealth, creating a steady stream of traffic to his blog, which has made him make a fortune in affiliate marketing. So, if you need to know how to target an audience that is very specifically-focused, check him out.
Do “live” webcasts.
One of the hottest things now is to broadcast live online. Using either YouTube, Livestream.com, or Facebook’s powerful live video technology, you can now go live anytime and capture an audience for your brand.
This is a great idea if you have something to say but before you promote it to ten thousand people, do some preparation. Make sure that you have something valuable to tell people.
In short, “If you want to summon an audience of millions, make sure it’s worth the gathering.”
Run webinars and offer something free.
Anyone can run a webinar using the right software. But the key is in offering something of great value to your listening audience. If you can get a good mailing list going of niche-specific topics that they want to hear and learn more about, doing webinars is a very sure way of gaining a following.
Doing webinars won’t make you Gandhi, but it should get you some followers that will almost bend over backwards to follow you, and that puts you on the road to being an influencer.
If you don’t think video and webinars are worth your time, be sure to view these 17 video marketing stats.
Write a book or eBook.
It’s been said that words and ideas can change the world. And it’s true. This is particularly true in the online world. We are in the age when, even writers who were not born writers, can become writers by simply writing about their business or niche area. In this digital age, you can conjure up content from the air!
This takes work, of course. It also takes time. Creating eBooks can be done quickly, but you don’t want to let the quality of the work suffer.
You can hire out eBook writing to writers who can do it for you to promote your brand or offer a free eBook during one of your seminars or webinars. These are all great ways to get your message out there and promote your brand for a small budget.
Creating an eBook is relatively easy. You just need to have an understanding of the formatting requirements of Amazon Kindle and other platforms that you wish to have your book hosted with. Then write like the wind!
Discover the Magic of Infographics!
Okay, we’re finally to our favorite point, and you knew it was coming. After all, they don’t call us InfographicDesignTeam for nothing. But we’re not just tooting our own horn like so many do these days.
We’re showing you how creating a stunning infographic is one of the best possible ways that you can create dynamic content that can be used in any medium (print, websites, blogs,) and even live video, and push your brand to new limits.
People respond to dynamic media with important information. That’s what an infographic does. It captures the most important data from a niche topic and encapsulates it in an easily readable form.
If you don’t know where to start creating your infographic, call on us.
Like I said, they don’t call us InfographicDesignTeam for nothing!
We’re an influencer! And you can be too!
